This hand is from a $5/$10 game at Maryland Live, currently playing 7-handed. Both Villains seem pretty competent with regard to sizing, bluffing, value betting, etc and have no blatantly exploitable tendencies. My best guess is that they have a similar view of Hero.
UTG opens for $35. I call Js Jd in the CO, the Button and BB call.
Flop ($145 in pot) 5c 4s 2h. BB checks, UTG bets $105, I call, Button folds, BB calls.
Turn ($460 in pot) 9h. BB checks, UTG bets $275 with $670 behind. I have about $1500 behind, and BB covers.
What’s your play and why? Post your thoughts and comments here, and I’ll post results as well as my own thoughts this weekend (maybe as early as Friday, maybe not until Sunday, going to be a busy week).
I think I like making a small raise to about 600$, getting it in if BB folds and UTG shoves, but folding if BB raises. Note that this raise size allows UTG to re-open the action.
Another good option is to flat and to try to play rivers intelligently. I wouldn’t hate folding either, but I think it’s exploitable and mildly -EV.
Here are my reasons:
First, let’s think in terms of our range. We are remarkably close to the top of our range here: due to the fact that any Ax makes a gutshot, we’d mostly raise 54s on the flop, and we’d sometimes raise with sets as well. So really, we have almost the best hand in our range here, only topped by relatively few combinations of sets, and of A3s. At the same time, we still have a pretty wide range on the turn: a bunch of draws, one-pair hands, gutshots and total floats, so JJ ranks pretty high up there.
One complicating factor is the fact that BB called on the flop and is left to act behind us. His flop call is pretty strong and, actually, kind of baffling to me. I can’t figure out his range. Certainly A3 could be there, but I would think he would almost always have been aggressive already with sets, and it’s hard for me to see how he can hope to get to showdown with a one-pair hand on this board. I am thus significantly discounting weak hands, and thus I expect to see BB check-raise pretty often behind me. In fact, BB scares me way more than UTG.
The question is how do we deal with the fact that BB’s range is strong and mysterious. Flatting here is certainly the low-risk option, but it kind of caps our range, and allows BB to take his already-strong-looking range and really make us suffer. Raising to 600$ makes our range much more uncapped and harder to play against (raising keeps in our range all those hands that we flatted OTF because we didn’t expect anyone else to stay in the pot). The raise particularly to 600$ allows UTG to re-open the action by shoving when it gets back to him, which we expect him to do pretty often. So our raise sandwiches BB between us and UTG, forcing him to play almost as if we had shoved.
Now let’s consider UTG’s range: He has the usual overpairs there, probably 76s, some A3s, and many many combos of overcards+gutshot. Villain should know that his range looks a lot like that: full of overcards+gutshot but it doesn’t mean that it should matter to him, because that’s actually a pretty hard range for us to play against, since he still has 21% equity or so against our actual hand, which is close to the top of our range. He should expect us to fold hands like 66-88, 86, and so on. I guess he should notice that BB’s range is pretty strong, but I’m not sure that people are sufficiently able to make this kind of analysis on the table, so I think that on the table, BB’s range doesn’t look as strong to UTG as it should. So I think UTG barrels a ton of his range, which means that we are doing pretty well vs his range.
My first instinct was to minraise, with roughly the plan and justification that you describe. (Well, my justification was not as articulate as this.)
Probably we disagree a bit about BB’s range. I think you’ll see plenty of 65s, 76s, 66, and 33. I think this makes a small raise even better than you justify.
It will frequently be correct to make an exploitive fold in this spot, but with opponents as Andrew describes I think not folding JJ is better.
Also, for whatever it’s worth–I’m not saying this is such a lineup, but there are live midstakes lineups against which this is a really nice barrel spot for the opener, because BB’s range is so heavily weighted toward pair+gutter hands that he will fold, and the guy in Andrew’s spot is caught between a UTG raiser who is following through on the turn and the BB–and does he think you are really trying to fold both him and BB out?
This is way above my stakes, and I don’t play live either, but I’ll have a go.
UTG is showing a lot of strength betting into two players, although he might be using his perceived strength to leverage some fold equity with an unmade hand. While he could be barreling with overs that picked up the flush draw (and TT is in his range too), I think he has too many combos of better overpairs for us to continue, especially as we’re not closing the action and the BB could be planning a check-raise. Stacks are set up so that UTG will be often be shoving the river (he certainly *seems* pot-committed), and I don’t think we can call off another $670 there, especially as there are plenty of river cards that make us want to throw up, particularly if the BB is still in the pot.
In short, I fold, and go back to my rock garden. 😉
Nice post. Against many straightforward lineups I largely agree with you. In the situation Andrew describes I think BB has too much incentive to raise his best hands on the flop, and UTG has too much incentive to bet more than his very best hands, to fold JJ. But over the felt I have folded JJ here many many times, and don’t regret doing so–but in this context I don’t think you can get away with folding that much of your range.
Agreed with Arty Smokes.
I think chances are that we are actually beaten in two spots. the BB call is awfully strong (I think their absolute bottom of the overcalling range is A5. 66 or 33 and it gets worse for us from here on). Then we have to take into account the elephant in the room: UTG opening pre, and double barreling that strong.
I feel raising is absolutely horrific as we are pretty much turning the hand into a 2-outer bluff (or possibly already drawing dead by A3)
so we are down to calling or folding. if we call and BB folds, I think villain will have our hand pegged and he is still shoving even with AK and we can’t call. the best outcome would be for the BB to overcall (obviously we are folding to a c/r) to protect us from the UTG from bluffing river. but chances of that happening are pretty slim since BB is going to fold A5, 66-88 and possibly TT too and they will probably c/r 33 or flopped/turned sets and straights. I honestly can’t see how we can continue, thus I would fold.
Call turn, fold to a ship from BB.
Call any river that’s not a heart.
Stoving against a range of {99+,55-44,22,A3s,76s,Ah8h,Ah7h, AhKh,AhQh,KhQh,AhJh,KhJh,AhTh,KhTh} we have at least 27% equity on any card that’s not a heart making it an easy call, and we are totally crushed on any heart river.
It’s interesting to realize that our equity on the river is not worse on a A or K than it is on a blank (27-28%)
Thanks for doing that work with the ranges. I think that a small raise has many of the advantages of the line you describe, and other advantages too–see above.
BB:
I am not as convinced as others seem to be that BB’s call is “awfully strong”. In fact, at each opportunity to show strength (squeezing preflop or raising flop), BB has chosen the passive action in just calling. It’s important to remember that BB was closing the action both preflop and on the flop. On the flop, BB was getting almost 3.4:1 on a call to see the next card which could potentially improve his equity. For example, on this particular board, BB can have a ton of Ax suited which have at least a gut shot or a pair + gut shot or some sort of back door flush draw that would in fact want to see another card.
UTG
On the other hand, UTG is representing significant strength here. At every opportunity, UTG has chosen the strongest action by raising UTG, betting into 3 players on flop, and betting into 2 players on turn. In multiway pots, we generally suspect villain will play his hand in a straight forward manner. Given description of UTG as a competent player, I do not believe villain is cbetting with 100% of his UTG opening range on this board. Hands like AK that has a gutshot and two overs may choose to either c/f or c/c depending on action behind.
I’m certainly not thrilled about folding as strong as JJ here but I think its a good fold. If we dont suspect that Villain will be getting out of line all that often in a multiway pot after 2 calls on the flop. I think we have to sigh and fold.
FWIW, I don’t think the BB’s range is all that strong either. Indeed his range is wide enough to make it really hard to know which are good cards for us on the river (other than the jack of clubs) if he overcalls the turn.
I know that we shouldn’t be making “close” folds merely to save us from having to face tougher decisions on later streets (we should be trying to maximise our EV against all the ranges we’re up against, if we can estimate it fairly accurately) but the situation here is so unclear – and I’m such a nit – that I’m happy to lay down jacks before my head explodes on the river.
Whatever decision Andrew made, I hope he looked left, then right, then left again, before making it. 😉
Given the description of the villains, we can assume that they are at least thinking about the ranges of their opponents. So what range has the BB villain assigned to both UTG and to us for them to overcall?
does the BB think UTG will bet all their bluffs into two people on this dry flop? even if the answer is yes, our call here is definitely A5+ as far as they are concerned, yet they elect to overcall.
now more importantly, what range does the UTG player assign to both us and BB for them to bomb the turn still? I don’t think they are likely to continue here without a set or QQ+. There is a slim possibility they have TT or the remaining jacks, but apart from bluffs we are not ahead of much. I really can’t see how we can continue here other than bluffing ourselves and try to rep the set of 9s. But that is suicidal…
Like most of the comment so far, I don’t hate a fold here. Even though it is gross and probably at the top of your folding range, I think you can be put into a lot of tough spots with what action is to follow.
UTG is the only player here representing anything better than hero’s current hand. It’s entirely possibly you’ve been behind the whole time. It’s also entirely possible that he’s double barreling with 2 overs and you’re good. Without knowing UTG’s double barreling frequency, it’s hard for me to say if you should stick around or not. And this doesn’t even consider the BB still to act.
The presence of the BB in the hand makes matters more difficult. Given that he didn’t squeeze pre , we can reduce the chances of him having an over pair as well as complete trash so that leaves a lot of middle pairs, say 77 and lower and maybe a few suited broadways as well as suited Aces. His range narrows even further after calling the turn to over pairs worse than ours, sets, and Ax of hearts. The reason I add sets in there is that I can see him not raising sets, particular bottom and middle set because of game dynamics. Perhaps he thinks one of you will do the betting for him and he can just let you value town yourself or maybe he’s going to raise the turn?
Since you don’t close the action and since it’s possible you could have the 3rd best hand of the bunch, I’d fold. It wouldn’t surprise me if the action played out as you fold turn, BB raises with his set and UTG calls (maybe) with his premium pair and afterwards you exclaim that you can dodge bullets.
Situations like this are exactly why Jacks can be so difficult to play. I don’t mind the call behind preflop, but this is one of those situations where our hand is kind of in limbo between being too good to fold and too weak to call. JJ could easily be good, but it is so dang hard to tell lol
We don’t want to just setmine with pairs as strong as JJ, we don’t want to fold just because villian 2 barrels, and we don’t really want to get it all in either..
I say we just pick now, and commit to either having the best hand or not. Either shove or fold the turn depending on how you feel about your chances at the time. The problem is I don’t think villian or BB ever fold anything that beats you, and I also don’t think you ever get called by anything worse.
So if you shove UTG and BB can each play near perfectly against you. Which makes it seem like shoving isn’t a great option. The problem is calling doesn’t really help you either, unless you just decide you’re good and call turn/call (most) rivers.
BB could easily have a draw or any number of hands that you’re ahead of. He could also be crushing us and laying in wait, and there’s no way to know this without putting more money into the pot.
For what its worth, I like a small 3bet preflop.
In the hand I would probably have to fold this on the turn, unless I thought UTG was brave enough to just barrel with overs or draws. Then I would shove. It sucks but you almost have to disregard BB in the hand because he could have a lot of draws/1 pr hands, but could also still have slow played sets. He probably raises 2pr OTF, but either way the turn wasn’t likely to help him (unless 99 exactly) so we play our hand according to whether or not we think we can beat UTG at the moment. And then we play it fast or just muck. The only exception to this would be if we thought UTG would fold a better hand on the river to a shove. A 3,6,10,J,A river may be enough to get a fold from an overpair if UTG thinks we wouldn’t turn our hand into a bluff.
But it seems too likely UTG either has a bigger pair, or a set himself. A set for UTG I think is still plausible considering its only 7 handed and he is a competent player. If he did flop a set I like the way he played it lol.
What is the buy in?
Did UTG buy in for 1000$ and just start playing?
Is 1000$ the limit?
Are you and the BB both Winning?
My gues BB is sitting on a draw. He got beautifull ods to call pre-flop. He has to call 25 for a pot of 120. A lot of speculative hands would make this call. Imo he has a verry wide range. On the flop he could have a hand licke 65s making top pair with a gutshot. He could have anny small Ax. He could be slowplaying his set or straight, but I think he would bet them on the turn. On the flop he has 2 opponents who are willing to put money in. The 9 doesn’t change much for him. The heart shouldnt have helped anyone. I think he would have gone for value with set or straight instead of trapping and risking a check around.
UTG is another story. He raises pre-flop signalling he has a strong holding. As a good player he would have AK to AJ, ATs, AA to 88. A 9could be in his range, but without more information i wouldn’t give this a big propability. We loose to AA, KK, QQ, 99. For 21 combinations.we win from the other combinations. For 52 combinations.
The flop is rather dry. Hes not expecting that you have anny 3, or it should be 33. Mosr descent players dont call with A3, K3 etc. Most descent players dont call a raise with 43s from an utg raiser. (Its another story for BB however due to the good price he gets)
his C-bey on the flop makes good sence. I personally would make this c-bet here all the time. Lets say he has AQ. He could be pickyng up the pot right now with his C-bet. When called he hass following outs. 3xA, 3xQ, 4×3 for 10 outs.
on the turn BB shows weaknes. A 2nd barrel could be possibel. He has shown to be capabel of bluffing, he has shown to be 2 barreling.
I would put UTG all-in. Raising to 660. With a minraise your forcing him also all-in. What are you going to do? You minraise to 550. BB shuves or folds. UTG raises to 660. Are you going to fold to his reraise of 110 extra chips? Just put in 660 and see what BB does. If he will be folding or shuving. There are no other options for him. If he shuves i would fold. Taking a big loss.
I think the BB has a very wide range. He got about 5 to 1 to see the flop and about 3.3 to 1 to call the flop bet. He’s closing the action both times. It is difficult to narrow his range given the action so far — he could have A3, 33, a set, 67s, or 66+. A crucial question for me is how likely is he to turn 33 or 66+ into a bluff? He has to know our thoughts on his approximate range. If he is very or even somewhat likely to c/r bluff with those combinations, I would have to find a fold on the turn.
I think the decision is between folding and raising. I think calling is bad because you are allowing hands that have a good amount of equity to see the river getting a good price. Any A, K, Q, 6, or 3 is bad and that’s nearly half the deck.
Andrew must think UTG is opening a tightish range preflop or else he would probably 3 bet JJ preflop. So UTG preflop range is probably something like 88+, AJs+, AQo+, KQs, and probably some suited connector’s thrown in. He’s probably not cbetting 100% on this flop texture because against 3 players he probably doesn’t have the fold equity plus he’s out of position to 2 players. I would guess he’s cbetting the pocket pairs as well as the Ax hands as bluffs.
After he gets called in 2 spots on the flop I think he really should give up on some of his bluffs. I think he would give up on the overcard bluffs often because he can’t be sure an ace or 3 will make him the best hand. I think this bet is mostly for value and would consist of 99+. Andrew is ahead of TT (6 combos), but behind 99 (3 combos) and QQ+ (18 combos). Plus we still have to factor in the BB. There is a decent chance we are behind him and if we aren’t he surely has a lot of equity. It just seems like a spot where we are either slightly ahead or absolutely destroyed. I think folding is best.
I fold here. I think if we look at our own range we will find we are not very far up it — if Andrew played his range on the flop correctly, that is, in an unexploitable fashion. This is the kind of flop on which I believe we should not have a raising range multi-way in position against UTG when we trying to play unexploitably. The basic problem is one of splitting ranges. Our profitable continuing range is not large enough to support a balanced raising and flatting range.
So we should be flatting our whole range to continue, which should be tight in the first place because of our relative position on the flop when we press call, the number of opponents we face, and the type of flop that this is.
If we look at 66 we will find a hand that just crushes JJ’s equity in reference to an UTG range that is either tight or wide. I can’t think of a hand that UTG should barrel on the turn that JJ has better equity against than 66. That is to say I don’t think UTG is well advised to bet TT on the turn in this circumstance, again, in an unexploitable setting. That may be false in practice.
Anyways, I think if we are really, truly, actually giving people credit for playing their ranges well, we should fold. If we call, we are calling exploitably, and remember, we are exploiting both the BB and UTG (assuming my first point is correct).
It is not just that you should tighten your continuing ranges multi-way a little bit. You should tighten them a lot…. because going from heads-up to three-way…. it doubles your opponents. And when we look at a hand like JJ actually, the outs of BB and UTG will often not intersect, meaning the Venn diagram of our equity with JJ has alot of the possible river cards shaded unfavourably.
UTG line seems very strong. He is betting into 3 people on the flop, 2 on the turn. Safe flop for big pairs, and I think the only made hand you beat on the turn is TT which I think would size turn a bit bigger vs 2 people with a lot of bad rivers possible.
So discounting TT,this line seems standard with QQ-AA, and AK. Raising JJ on the turn is therefore either turning JJ into a bluff/semi protection vs AK, or going to get stacks in bad vs. QQ-AA. I watched a very similar hand live last night where JJ overplayed in a similar spot. Especially with action remaining from the BB , I think I like flatting the turn, instamucking if BB flips out, and putting JJ in the same category as 88 on the river if a blank hits and evaluating the PFR’s action.
Im assuming we are 1k effective here?
I think what we should do hinges on what we do with different parts of our range. I’m assuming we flat all pairs here? if so then our flop calling range should include all sets, and some 66-JJ (depending on at which point you start 3betting all combos of big pairs pre) and some floats you intend to potentially bluff later in the hand, like 67s/78s with back door draws. I agree with Gareth that i don’t really see us having a raising range here on the flop.
on the turn our hand has fallen further down our range as 99/87hh/67hh all improved their equity, but also their equity against the top of our opponents range.
given villain is betting twice into 2 opponents both of whom may be opting not to raise with any of their range on the flop, i think villains range probably only contains hands that have enough raw equity to bet, i think villain betting a range QQ+/99 Axhh/AKhh.
Maybe I’m tightening ranges too much, but if the call behind us is uncapped on the flop, which a balanced range would be. then we are going to have some real trouble doing anything other than folding this portion of our range.
we could probably raise sets/66 and some of the bluffing candidates i outlined earlier (would probably need to raise all 67s combos and even then might have enough bluffs.)
i fold in game but i dunno if thats a huge error or not.
Preflop: Utg raises to 35 with just over 1000 in his stack and is most likely going to be playing out of position against one or many opponents. Im going to go on a limb here and say he knows he should be raising tighter due to positional disadvantages such as being first to act and him usually winning less on his made hands as well. His range preflop should be stronger in theory, so this may include 22+, AT+, any suited ace due to its nuts value in multiway pots along with broadway hands suited and some unsuited. Of course we can not forget some suited connectors.
Hero: Our range at this pointed is generally leaning more towards marginal holdings such as suited connectors, 22-99 and probably mostly suited broadway hands along with suited aces. Of course we can flat with aa-tt, aj+ but by doing this we invite the button to limp behind us and perhaps pricing the sb or bb. Unless we know that the button or BB like to squeeze a lot or with any other dynamics; I think big pairs and AQ-AK would prefer playing heads up than multi way.
BB : The BB range is by far the widest as he should be calling with a heavy percentage of hands because of his equity in the pot. So if I were to point out the weakest range at this point it would clearly be the BB. We can discount big pairs and AK and replace those hands with more trashy hands that will play fit or fold post-flop.
Flop:
I believe that the BB is in the worse possible situation if he hits a set, two pair , pair with draw, and the two possible straights. Think about it bluffing with a small pair + draw almost never gets folds against two players on this texture as he is getting at least one caller than has to barrel or give up on most turns. He could be for value with A5 for example but once against will either have to turn that into a bluff catcher on the turn or turn it into a bluff itself. I think he check raises or leads out with his sets and possibly the low straight for value and protection. He can’t really just check call because he risks letting scare cards both for him and the other affect the outcome of the hand and also risks the turn getting checked around. I think he’s flatting mostly his pair plus draw hands, and sometimes with sets , weak vulnerable two pair that dont want to play for stacks multi way on this board and sometime straights also.
UTG: I believe he is cbetting with many hands that have hit or missed the flop so I dont think too much of this at this point.
Hero: When we flat here i believe we represent mostly drawing hands, small pairs and also suited aces.
Turn: BB: when he checks again on the turn it seems like he either has a hand that doesn’t mind giving us a free card(the nuts) and willing to take the change that it gets checked through for deception. The other possibility i find is that he is also doing this with a weak two pair hand willing to cheaply go to showdown by checking for pot control or a paired hand with draw planning to give up if it encounters further action.
UTG: Once he bets here I think its pretty clear he is not folding as he invested almost 40% of his stack and plans to call a shove. That being said I believe he could easily have a set himself, AA-KK sometimes, but mostly hand like 6h7h, ahxh. Mostly hands with good equity against us or the BB.
Hero: I think this is a fold for us because even if we are right about UTG being behind us in the hand, he most probably has great equity against our hand. He is putting us in very tough spot also because the BB is left to act behind. We need two things for us to work if we jam here. 1. The BB must fold. 2. If the BB does fold we have to hope that utg is not crushing us. Even if he is not crushing us we still have to hope he misses. The problem I have with calling is that once again we have to hope BB doesn’t jam and if he calls we pretty much have to give up now because not many rivers will be good for us. Even if we hit the non heart Jack were still not sure! If we call and the BB folds we have to expect the utg player to be shoving almost any card and if so which one do we stack off too?